Traditional corporate systems are too inflexible, while freelancing didn’t allow us the kind of connectedness we yearn. What now?

Monika Frech and Lisa Zoth are two of 30 co-founders of the Berlin-based agency Dark Horse Innovation. They created a company that combines autonomy and community in a new way: 30 partners work together without any hierarchies whatsoever, they have an internal award for their best failures and nobody is allowed to spend more than 50% of their work time at Dark Horse. Monika and Lisa show how this approach can make Generation Y knowledge workers more happy and companies more innovative at the same time.

About the speaker

Monika Frech is one of 30 co-founders of the Berlin-based agency Dark Horse Innovation. Dark Horse creates user-centered products and services and helps clients to change their structures, processes and minds. Their work is based on Design Thinking principles and their own unusual working culture that simultaneously stresses flexibility and connections.

We decided to found a business and got three advices: (1) Never found a company with more than three people (2) Never found a company with your friends (3) Spend all your time for the start-up. We ignored all that advice.
— Monika Frech